The Greater Good
by Karai III
Summary: Alex realized something was wrong,his heart started to pound fearfully-he blindly reached for the edge of the roof hoping to stop his fall.His hand did not find it....He rushed towards Yassen-ignoring the prospect of a bullet in the chest like Snake.


**Disclaimer: Yassen, Snake and Alex are the property of Anthony Horowitz. At the same time, although the plot is mine, the thoughts, opinions and ideas of the characters as written, do not necessarily reflect the ideas of me the author and are presented solely for your enjoyment and perhaps as a little food for thought.**

**Enjoy and of course tell me what you think. This is my first time writing Yassen and I'd like feedback.**

**Note: The series of events in Eagle strike did not take place in this universe.**

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**The Greater Good**

Summary: Yassen and Alex have a conversation about whether or not there is such a thing as the greater good and that if there is, does it apply in this setting where Snake is at the point to die but Alex has left him to continue following after Yassen in the hopes of preventing him from delivering a dangerous package to his cohorts. Alex is 16.

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Alex ran as fast as he could, bracing his legs for the jump they where about to have to make; Yassen was putting distance between them at an alarming rate. He glanced over at Snake, who was slightly ahead of him and pushed himself to go faster. The length of the thirteen story parking garage was allowing them to gather the speed needed to make the jump across the busy street below to the next roof. But the bank ahead of them was 14 feet higher than the one they were about to leave and that doubled their chances of missing and splatting out of existence on the road below; they need all the speed and strength that the could muster to make it up and across safely.

Alex looked up and noticed Yassen disappearing from the roof ahead of them meaning he was getting even farther away. Pushing himself to the absolute fastest he could go, Alex prepared to make the jump. He could not allow Yassen to pass off that briefcase to his associates.

Alex pushed off with tremendous power and he was suddenly flying towards a concrete and glass wall in the hopes of landing on the adjacent face of it. Glancing to his right he noted that Snake was airborne as well.

Then Alex realized something was wrong, his heart started to pound fearfully…it seemed as though he was falling short of his target. Snake shouted out when he landed on the roof successfully and Alex saw the wall rushing to meet him at a hundred miles an hour. He turned his head to avoid smashing his nose in it as he blindly reached for the edge of the roof in the hopes that he could prevent a fall to his death. His hand did not find it but Snake's found his.

Alex was eternally grateful to the man for pulling him from the jaws of gravity.

"Hurry, we're gaining on him!" Snake urged, he took off again after Yassen's now visible form racing across the top of the building two stories below them. Soon they were all on the same roof. The chase was drawing to a close and Alex was glad because he was getting tired; his legs burned and he could not draw deep enough breaths to dispel the lactic acid that was accumulating in his muscles.

Just as it looked as though Yassen may be caught before he could make the next jump, he whorled around pulling out a .45 CP semiautomatic pistol. 4 shots rang out before he put it back and jumped out of sight. Alex had jumped out of the way as he noticed the tensing of Yassen's trigger finger, his senses were stung high on adrenaline and so were his reflexes. Miraculously he was not hit. But the sudden absence of fellow footfalls told him that the shots had not been meant for him.

Turning in horror, his fears were confirmed. Snake was lying in a fast growing pool of his own blood. Somehow fear made Alex run even faster than he had before to Snake's side. Snake had taken all four bullets; one in his arm, two in one thigh, and because of the close range, one right through his Kevlar to his left breast.

He was still conscious when Alex knelt down next to him.

"Don't stop, go get him." he spluttered when Alex began tearing a bandage from his own shirt for Snake's chest.

"Go!" he insisted coughing up blood from the force of his command.

"But Snake-"

"Stop him, I'm not important." he wheezed "He'll kill millions. Go!" He lapsed into a bloody coughing fit. Alex hesitantly backed away blinking back tears. "But Snake, you'll d-"

"You have to Cub. Go on." he said more softly, weakly. Alex found that his sight had become blurry. He blinked away the tears clouding his vision allowing them to slide down his cheeks as Snake's eyes drifted shut.

Without a backward glance, he took off again, his fastest yet. He found that as his mood changed so did his abilities and now that he was fueled by anger and grief, he felt almost refreshed, rested. His strength was back at full and he spanned the buildings ahead of him easily. He spotted the object of his hatred just below climbing down a fire escape to a much lower building and then to the ground. Alex was on his tail jumping the ten feet to the ground to cut the distance between them. He rushed towards the assassin, to stopping from reaching the docks and freedom, recklessly ignoring the prospect of a bullet in the chest like Snake. Favored by a phenomenal speed because of his raging emotions, Alex was rapidly closing the gap but at the last minute Yassen managed to scale and cleanly jump the barbed wire fence surrounding this particular compound. Alex had to stop short; he dared not try Yassen's stunt. He had not the experience or bodily strength to attempt such a feat.

Instead of continuing on Yassen stopped and looked Alex coldly from the other side of the fence. His steely blue eyes were hard between the few strands of sweat soaked hair that hung in his face.

Alex frantically searched for another way past the fence but Yassen's sudden remark startled him.

"So you simply left him?" he abruptly asked. His tone was flat but his eyes looked faintly disgusted.

Alex stopped short of his frenzied search and gazed at Yassen with a look of utter repulsion.

"Why do you look so sorry? You shot him!"

"Then why not stay with him and call for help?"

"I couldn't let that stop me from catching you." Alex answered while scanning the area for a means of covering the razors on the fence.

Yassen looked mildly surprised "And his death is worth you catching this?" he gestured to the briefcase he was carrying containing vials of small pox, polio, and Hepatitis C.

Alex slammed the fence in frustration becoming unnerved by Yassen's strange questions.

He closed his eyes for a moment his head hanging "Snake's sacrifice was for the greater good he would not w-"

"And what is the greater good Alex?" Yassen interrupted in an icy tone "Something MI6 taught you to say when you need to justify someone's death?"

Alex stared at him "Of course not! Do you think the life of one man is worth millions of others? That I should have saved him and let them die?"

"You think that millions are on the verge of dying Alex? You have no real proof. Can you justify the death of a comrade on an assumption?"

Alex rattled the fence in frustration considering climbing it despite the prospect of tearing his hands to ribbons. He ignored Yassen questions which he concluded were designed to distract him. He didn't want to think about Snake's death, but he wasn't going to let it be in vain.

"What if you're wrong Alex?" Yassen pressed curiously "What if I leave with this case and Snake dies but you never hear of a sudden small pox epidemic or an outbreak of Hepatitis C? What if none of those ever happen but Snake is already dead for nothing?"

"What do you care?" Alex yelled as he climbed the fence. "You shot him; what do you care if dies?" Alex couldn't understand why Yassen make his getaway. Why was he confusing Alex with all these questions?

"He doesn't mean anything to me, true, but he's obviously you're friend. I thought that you were smarter than that." the man answered following Alex's ascent with his eyes.

"What do you mean?"

"Can't you see that there is no greater good?"

"What the hell are you talking about?" Alex demanded pausing again near the top. He was now appalled by Yassen's conversation "Are you saying a man is an island, every child is to fend for himself, no sacrifices, no one helps anyone else?!"

Yassen's expression remained the same "Who are you to say how many lives are worth your friend's, your brother's, your wife, yourself? Is it a man for two men or maybe two men for a child? What describes how much a life is worth? When one or two or four are worth more than the others? How do you choose who deserves to be saved?"

Alex did not know what to say. Surely millions should not die for one but Yassen had a point. It was a sticky, morally gray area that Alex was now being forced to deal with on his missions. He said nothing but he knew that Yassen noticed his uncertainty.

"Let me ask; would you sacrifice your queen for a supposed million?" Yassen pressed on "Wouldn't her life seem too important to throw away without any real proof? She would still be one for a million. But her life is worth too much right?"

Alex was quiet.

"Answer me." Yassen commanded as Alex steadfastly clung to the fence. "Would you have done this?"

Alex couldn't prevent the tears from squeezing out of his closed eyes. Maybe just maybe Snake had died in vain.

"You're the one who shot him!" he suddenly yelled down at Yassen from the top of the fence. "You're the killer. You're the one making decisions about who should live and who should die. If you care so much then ask yourself why you did that."

"I don't have to ask myself anything. Because I already know. I had one goal which was to deliver this package and collect my payment. He was becoming a threat so I had to remove that threat. However if I wanted to kill him I would have shot him in the head."

"You've killed him anyway!"

Yassen shook his head in what seemed to be disappointment, but Alex couldn't tell for sure. "You should ask yourself what life is worth before you deign to decide how much one is worth. That's the kind of bullshit that MI6 does. Don't become that."

He started to walk away with the package.

"I don't kill people because I think they don't deserve to live, I do it because I don't care. But you do and that makes it worse. You kill people and then make up a good reason for doing it."

Alex rattled the fence in the hopes of stalling Yassen long enough to vault of the top of the fence. He wasn't sure why Yassen hadn't shot him yet but he intended to push his luck.

"I didn't kill him Yassen. I'm not the villain. You're the one delivering deadly substance to a madman. You're the one who makes a living off of other people's deaths. Why are you trying to incriminate me?"

"So I kill people." Yassen asked turning around again "That make me, an assassin. Does your brand of killing make you a spy then?

"What do you mean?" Alex demanded retracting his bleeding hand from the barb/razor combo he had touched.

"I kill people and so do you. It sounds as though you are a villain."

"There's a difference." Alex growled, wrapping his two hands in the sleeves of his shirt.

"Really, I don't see one."

"I didn't mean to kill them. Not all of them."

Yassen raised an eyebrow "But you were glad that they died weren't you?" he began to walk away again. "Don't delusion yourself into think that the world is black and white pastel pink Alex. It's only grey." he continued in the direction of the dock and a waiting boat.

"Oh and by the way," he added "unless your friend is a hemophiliac, I don't think he's dead…yet. You have the choice of either saving him yet or continuing this futile chase. It's up to you."

Yassen's words ignited a flicker of hope. Of saving Snake. Maybe all was not lost. But still…the mission. Duty told him that he needed to stop Yassen. His heart told him that he needed to save Snake because despite what he had said about himself, Snake was important. Lastly, reality and commonsense told him that his chances of catching Yassen were very slim. He chose the best of his choices, the more important one.

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As Alex tore down the street ignoring the stares of the evening crowd who gazed upon his bruised and bloodied form, only one thought raced through his mind. He could not let everything be in vain; he could not allow both situations to slip through his fingers. He could NOT let Snake die. That would be too much.

Counting buildings, Alex came to an abrupt stop in front of the bank on whose roof Snake lay…hopefully alive.

He slammed through the doors, running up to the service counter while shouting at whomsoever would listen. "Hurry, there's a man on the roof. He's bleeding…bad." His breath was coming in short gasp and his lungs ached. "He's shot… in the chest." He began to see black borders forming around his vision as a man rushed up to him. "You've got to hurry." he rasped frantically

"Calm down son, show me." the man soothed following him to the elevator. Other's rushed into it with them to see for them selves.

Alex urged the man to call for help but he already had.

By the time they reached the roof, Alex's heart was pounding throughout his whole body; his muscles were pulsing with worry and fatigue.

Alex burst through the roof access door and flew across the concrete to Snake's side and to his immense joy the man still had a pulse. But he was not breathing and he was covered in blood.

Alex immediately began CPR, hoping against hope that the medics would get there before it was to late. They had to.

After what seemed like an hour of endless breaths and pumps, Alex was gently pushed aside as a team of paramedics took over. They quickly assessed Snake's situation and stabilized him with an IV drip and an oxygen mask to hold him until the Medevac arrived a couple minutes later. As Snake was loaded into the chopper, Alex asked if he would be alright.

"I think he will son." the medic answered "If you hadn't started CPR when you did he would have been dead but you saved his life. You're a brave young man… and a hero." Alex was so relieved he laughed. Just for the simple joy of saving the life of a friend. It was a wonderful feeling. Maybe this was not the greater good. Maybe there was no greater good and lesser good. But this had to be some sort of good and that was fine for now. Alex decided to confront the demons of his conscience when he actually knew what he thought of it all; where he stood. For now, as he sat beside Snake while they were flown to a hospital, the thought of a hot bath and a soft bed were the only things occupying Alex's mind.

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